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Ask Sam Gnagey for his perspective -- it is rather interesting!

I heard his strategy one year was: 4 successive performances, 4 different keys of tuba ....

I'll let Sam explain the rationale!

Cheers,

DP wrote:Lotta guys I know use Eflat tuba on Nutcracker. Why?

Is that the wurst choice?

DP wrote:
is it that boring?

According to a reliable source ...

Oh, liver alone. I never sausage nerve!

Lettuce leaf it alone, we have beet it too much already.

In typical TubeNet fashion, I have no personal experience with the Nutcracker, so I will provide my opinion ...

... but from the perspective of the instrument, not the music:

The Eb tuba (the larger versions), are as we have all read, quite capable instruments. In an orchestra pit, with a Willson or a Besson 981, etc., you should have more than adequate volume, nice clarity, etc. ... all characteristics that should be ideal for this musical setting.

The few times I've played tuba in an orchestra pit setting (playing Eb tuba, btw), we were always "too loud" anyway (civic theater productions -- with vocal parts). So I even suspect a 3/4 Eb tuba could work in some cases ... as long as the trumpets were always muted, and you also reduced the size of the pit orchestra to half of your original target ...

Cheers,

From what I have read on the earliest Russian tuba tradition it was based on German players playing BBb instruments out of the Cerveny factory or from makers applying the same style of building tubas.

We have discussed the St. Petersburg tubas quite often. I have tried a superb sample out of the first batch distributed via Germany. However I did not buy a St. P because I found the leadpipe being too narrow for my playing style.

But then I would lie, if I said anything bad about the valves after the German conversion of the linkage. The intonation was good, all notes spoke well over a very large range, only I found my dynamics slightly restricted.

Aside from the players in the most prestigious orchestras (who were allowed to import instruments), the St. P was THE Russian orchestral tuba until the political changes of 15 or 20 years ago. My understanding is that some few orchestras are better off now, whereas most orchestras have run into huge financial problems.

I have met a person from a town 200km south of Moscow, which used to have a huge industry of making wood based musical instruments (pianos, all sorts of strings). By 1998 that industry had been closed down because the obtainable sales prices could not even cover the costs of materials.

In the Bydlo discussions somebody quoted Stravinsky for wanting as huge a tuba as possible. That clearly indicates the orchestral roots of Stravinsky, which were Russian with no if or but. However the extremely clever Stravinsky failed to realise, that Ravel’s instrumentation has moved Pictures from a Russian piano sphere to a French orchestral ditto.

I do not know the nutty part in question. Basically my attitude to instrumentation is inspired by Cheech and Chong. When asked about which specific sort of vegetable derivatives they wanted to smoke, the answer was: “The available one!â€

Klaus, for such a ham, you really cut through the cheese. Your explanation really cut the mustard about the bread and butter of smaller gigs. So many others, including myself, post so much tripe, it's good to get the whole enchilada laid straight out on the table. Put a fork in me, I'm done for now.

I don't play Eb tuba; my tiny mind won't allow it. I played a large F (Yamaha) several times on the Nutcracker and in our situation, it works pretty well. Because of space limitations, we use a reduced string count for all of the pit work. Typically, we use six - eight basses on the stage. In the pit we only use three.

In answer to Dale's question "Is it that boring?", if you do a few performances, no. The music is good and there are some interesting moments for the tuba. We do seventeen Nutcracker performances each year and I usually play a few additional performances with another orchestra. Two years ago I did twenty three performances. When you crank out the same piece over and over, it does get a little tiresome. Playing F on a few shows helps to keep things lively.

From what I've heard, be glad you aren't doing Broadway shows!